UNEMPLOYMENT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 May 1938, Page 2

UNEMPLOYMENT

PRIME MINISTER’S FIGURES CHALLENGED HON A. HAMILTON’S SURVEY. SOME PERTINENT QUESTIONS. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. In his address last night, the Hon A. Hamilton dealt with the following statements made recently by the Prime Minister (Mr Savage): — “The registered number of unemployed in March, 1936, was 54,500. In March, 1938, it was 6,695. Added to that has to be taken into account 8,000 men totally unfit for work of any description that were fed by the hospital boards before we came into power. Look at the drop in the figures, in the change from 54,000 odd to something under 15,000, including the men who are not fit for any employment at all.

. . . . Then we have 20,000 men on public works .... In 1933 there were 6,773 men on public works.” “Of the 54,500 stated by Mr Savage as being unemployed,” said Mr Hamilton, “no less than 22,510 were not unemployed at all, but were in full time employment in industry and were not registered as unemployed at all. It is difficult to believe that such an important omission could be accidental. Mr Savage would have us believe that there were only 6,695 unemployed in New Zealand today. The last occasion when the full figures were shown was in the monthly Abstract of of December 22, 1937, which disclosed that 36,450 persons were receiving payment from the Unemployment Fund, and of these, 18,110 were receiving sustenance without doing a hand turn. In addition to all this, the Public Works have —in these times of great prosperity and high prices—a record number of employees, totalling, according to the latest official statement, 20,205 — which is 7,000 more than when Labour came into office. Furthermore, there are 10,000 more in the various Government Departments than when Labour came into office.

“If unemployment is so slight today,” Mr Hamilton concluded, “one is naturally prompted to ask why is it necessary to extract over £5,000,000 from the wages and incomes of the peoplp, to relieve a problem that, according to the Prime Minister, has already been solved? The answer, of course, is that the problem has not been solved, and that is why the Government is determined to hide the correct figures. The position, as disclosed by the December “Abstract of Statistics,” was:— Registered but not receiving | relief 2,229 Number 5 scheme 4,714 Sustenance without work 18,110 Full time subsidised employment 11,397 Extra employees of the State 17,000 53,450 “The unemployment tax was put on to meet an emergency. The Prime Minister says that the economic position of New Zealand is now better than it has ever been in New Zealand’s history. Yet, none of the unemployed appear to be absorbed back into ordinary industries. Why did he not tell us frankly where the £5,000,000 odd of unemployment tax is being spent? To say that it is being spent on less than 15,000 people is ridiculous: This would work out at over £3OO per year for each unemployed person!”